Inheritance

Simple Confusion

"Why... why are you ...," Obi-Wan struggles against his brain's desperate urge to remain speechless. "Why are you in a Force collar?"

The question tumbles out of him in horror. Seeing that collar, that damnable choker around her neck... it is an affront, an abomination to the Force itself. How dare someone attempt to stifle something so beautiful, try to tame something so irrepressibly transcendent, it is a crime against everything for which the master stands. Anger runs through Obi-Wan's veins unchecked. His skin feels hot and tight as his hands curl into fists on their own accord. His teeth clench. The Force around him warps and twists as he sits there seething. Obi-Wan has never felt anger, no rage like this except for when he is under the influence of whatever dark force grips him when he is without his collar. Then Obi-Wan's rage falls away from him as a terrifying thought crosses his mind.

"Nai'gia, you aren't... ill, are you?"

She doesn't answer, only cocks her head in a slightly bemused expression.

"What I mean is... Are you like me?" he asks, but again he is answered with only a child-like stare showing an innocent lack of understanding. Obi-Wan sighs and closes his eyes. A soft, uncalloused hand slips onto his causing his eyes to open and meet her equally soft and uncalloused gaze.

"Ssh, ssh. It's much quieter now, my little dreamer."

Little dreamer. It's the nickname she had given him when they first met all those years ago.

"I don't understand," he replies softly. Nai'gia lifts her hand from his and makes a sweeping gesture indicating the garden around them. Obi-Wan obeys her wordless command and looks around them. Droplets of water and a few heavy stones hover silently in the air, bobbing weightlessly in defiance of both reason and gravity. It is an amusing and, in truth, slightly disconcerting effect of being around such a powerful being in the Force. As familiar as the Force demonstration is, Obi-Wan is still unable to contain his surprise because such a demonstration shouldn't be possible. He turns back to her lounging form, his wide blue-gray eyes meeting her serene lavender ones.

"But... how?" he stammers ineloquently.

"The pretty quiets not silences, at least for me, but," she says sadly, "it's far too quiet for you. My little dreamer's voice is but a whisper now."

Obi-Wan nods slowly.

"I think... I understand," he begins. "The collar doesn't block the Force from you, it... thins it, makes it power more manageable." He pauses, his gaze dropping to his hands as he twists a blade of grass between two fingers. "You have chosen to wear it."

"All choose balance," she intones somewhat melodically. Obi-Wan releases a heavy sigh, his fingers still absently tugging on the grass.

"This," he says one hand lightly fingering the collar. "This isn't balance. I didn't choose this."

"Hmm," she murmurs thoughtfully, then she abruptly jumps to her feet, which Obi-Wan notices are bare. He had forgotten about her long war with shoes.

"Oh! Naughty, naughty boy! You've been hiding things from mommy!"

"What?" Obi-Wan replies as he also gets to his feet. Without warning, Nai'gia grabs at his robes wrenching the layers open exposing the upper portion of his lesion bedecked chest. Obi-Wan grabs her hands and wrists, delicately wresting them from his person.

"Nai'gia!" he exclaims. Suddenly, she stills in his hold. She stares at him with clear bewilderment.

"You expect me to see what is hidden, yet you hide what I must see. Why?"

Obi-Wan cringes, instantly regretting his earlier tone.

"Nai'gia," he begins gently, "next time, please just ask before you attempt to forcibly disrobe me." Obi-Wan releases her wrists and then removes his robes and inner tunics. He lays the garments on the soft ground and stands before her bare chested, blushing furiously as he feels her fingertips trace the patterns the dark lesions have etched over his pale skin. She places a palm flat against his sternum and gasps. Her eyes shoot up to meet his, her hand pulled away as if she were burned.

"What? What is it you sense?" he asks, desperation and fear tumbling roughly in his voice. She stares at him with wide, watery eyes.

"My dreamer dreams darkly," she whispers, then she lightly pats his chest. Her lips bare a small smile. "We need more light," she says. She takes a step back from him and reaches for the seam of her collar. Instinctively, Obi-Wan reaches out for her hand.

"No!" he yells. Nai'gia pauses, her head tilted to one side in question. "If you remove your... if you remove it, will... you be alright?"

Nai'gia looks at the worried man in front of her. As she speaks, Obi-Wan can feel compassion riding the mellifluous currents of her voice.

"Dreamer, I must be all right. I have never been all wrong," she says, then with a subtle click and a thump the collar falls carelessly to the ground between them.

Obi-Wan remembers all too well his recent bitter-sweet reunion with the Force so he braces himself expecting to see in Nai'gia the same moment of ecstasy he had felt so acutely, but to his surprise her expression remains essentially unchanged. Obi-Wan thinks he sees her smile widen slightly and perhaps there is a new twinkle of mischief in her eyes, but the changes are so minute he's unsure that there has really been any change at all.

Then she moves. She steps toward him with an odd hypnotic sway, her gaze glazes slightly as she cradles his bearded cheeks between her hands. Closer now Obi-Wan can tell she is humming softly to herself.

This is the Nai'gia of his memory.

"Made for the father. Sent by the son. Never was meant for Obi-Wan," she sings playfully as she drops both her hands to his chest. He gently holds her hands there, covering them with his own. Around him he is vaguely aware that everything in the garden that is not rooted or bolted to the ground is dancing casually in the air; floating and shifting to the beat of her humming tune.

"Made for the father, sent by the son," Obi-Wan repeats. "You're referring to Master Qui-Gon and Xanatos, aren't you? But what is it, Nai'gia? What did the son send?" he asks. Suddenly, the humming stops. Everything that was dancing in the air around them slows to tremulous hovering as if the Force itself is nervous with anticipation. She stares directly into his eyes.

"Darkness," she whispers. "Soul poison. A trap entwined with disease."

"I don't understand."

"A Force virus," she answers, her natural music drowned by the sorrow in her voice. "To turn or to burn, either way a morning star must fade. Dangerously complete is this dark," she sobs into his chest. Without conscious thought or hesitation, Obi-Wan cradles her head and shoulders in an intimate embrace.

"Is there really no hope?" he whispers into her scarlet mane. She glances up at him in surprise, a slow smile creeping across her lips.

"Hope is always there for those with eyes to see. Follow the Force and its will to let its dreamer be," she replies, her answers once again stubbornly cryptic. Obi-Wan takes her by the shoulders and holds her resisting the urge to shake the answers loose from her.

"Tell me. How do I escape this? What is the will of the Force? What must I do?" he begs. Nai'gia settles into his gaze and smiles sweetly.

"Only die."